New House Series: Hallway Pt 4 - Ladder Bravery

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Hey reader,

I finally figured out how to get to the part of the ceiling I couldn't reach. I know you have been sleepless for weeks worried about how I was going to do it. In case you HAVEN'T (how rude), lets talk issues.

The ladder is great and actually is capable of extending higher than my ceiling. However, that doesn't mean much considering there are steps in the stairwell (who knew). This means that the landing and the top of the stairs are the only two places the ladder can reasonably go (without having to build something to level out the steps [also I am really into talking in parenthesis this week. This is a double parenthesis!{obviously. Now its a triple!}]). I just got lost in my parenthesis nest. Don't worry, I left breadcrumbs to get me back to walls.

After thinking about it a while, we came up with this idea of affixing a trowel to a pole to allow me to smooth from afar. It is a great idea, but it is not without problems. Firstly, there are not a lot of trowels we could find that easily affix to a pole. Instead, I used a scraper. It doesn't give as well as a trowel and is obviously smaller. It does get mud to the spot though so beggars can't be choosers.

The next struggle was that I needed to be at ceiling height with the pole to be able to smooth the plaster blob I just got on the previously untouched spot. This meant that I was still on the ladder, but now with a giant pole. At least I could do that from the top of the stairs so I wasn't in danger of quite the same free fall as I would be otherwise.

In the end, it wasn't pretty, but the material is in place. It will need a little more sanding than the other areas to get smooth, but that can most certainly be done effectively with a pole sander so that is less of a concern.

So then it came time to do the second and third coats on the ceiling. I think I had been using the ladder wrong. I don't know how that is possible exactly as you pretty much just climb it, but I found that I could reach significantly more of the spot I "couldn't reach" the second time around. Maybe I am just more comfortable on the ladder now. Maybe my healthy fear of death is gone. I am not sure, but the area I can't reach is much smaller now. I will still need my trusty scraper on a stick for that spot, but I feel comfortable that the rough area is going to be much much smaller than originally thought.

I still have coats to do on two of the walls, but those I can reach just fine. There might be yet another post about this. I was feeling guilty, then I was feeling bored, now I am mostly feeling accomplished. This has dominated this blog for so long because it is a giant project that I am taking on. There is a finish line coming and while I don't rue the day I started, I certainly will be happy when it is finally done!

More to come as we finally approach downstairs!

Keep making cool stuff,

Until next time,
JoshPrime

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